1. Field of Application
This invention generally relates to equipment used for weight lifting, and more specifically to safety devices employed to protect a weight lifter from a barbell dropping on their body.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of barbells, i.e. free weights, for conditioning and enhancement of the body's musculature is widely practiced by a variety of people. Often these people prefer to weight lift in the privacy of their home ,and when they feel like weight lifting.
Most common weight training is executed with a spotter(i.e. someone who can assist the lifter when they become fatigued or are having difficulty or are about to drop the weight). Communication of the proper time to assist is difficult in the best of circumstances. The inconvenience to the spotter and the uncertainty of the assistance when losing control are major deterrents to using a spotter. However to weight lift alone (i.e., without a spotter) may be dangerous to the weight lifter. Without a spotter to grab the barbell and prevent the barbell from dropping on the weight lifter there is a significant danger of serious injury due to fatigue, or improper technique. Although this situation most likely occurs while engaged in private recreational lifting, the same danger exists for the professional during competition and at exercise gyms. In addition to the dangers with barbells similar dangers exist when using a stack of weights.
Three weight lifting modes are the bench press, squat and deadlift. The danger of crushing ones chest during the bench press is of great concern, people have been known to break a leg during squats. U.S. Pat. No. 5,273,506 to Fedric O. Dawson, Jr. shows a device with stops which is to act in stead of a spotter. While his device will stop the movement of the weights it does not help in the removal of the weights. King shows an air lift apparatus in U.S. Pat. No. 4,848,738 which can be used with a weight stack which is fixedly attached to the stack. Hydraulic jacks are used by William L. Barrett (as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,799,672) which do not interact with the weights, as do the devices of the previous mentioned Patents while U.S. Pat. No. 4,253,662 issued to Wayne S. Podolak shows an apparatus fixedly attached to the barbell.
The need for a barbell activated safety device is not fully met by the above mentioned devices and systems. None have automatic initiating of the safety device, without intervention by the weight lifter, and most are fixedly attached to the barbell or weights. All previous safety devices seem to have limitations due to their concept complexity or lack of automatic activation.